Melancholia

Definition: Melancholia

Melancholia

Noun

1. Extreme depression characterized by tearful sadness and irrational fears.

Date "melancholia" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1896. (references)

Etymology: Melancholia \Mel`an*cho"li*a\, noun. [Latin expression See Melancholy.]. (Websters 1913)

Synonym: Melancholia

Synonym: Mental depression. (additional references)

Melancholia (Greek μελαγχολια) was described as a distinct disease as early as the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. in the Hippocratic writings. It was characterized by "aversion to food, despondency, sleeplessness, irritability, restlessness," as well as the statement that "fear or depression that is prolonged means melancholia." It is now generally believed that melancholia is the same phenomenon as clinical depression.

Melancholia I

The name melancholia comes from the old medical theory of the four humours: disease being caused by an imbalance in one or other of the four basic bodily fluids, or humours. Personality types were similarly determined by the dominant humour in a particular person. Melancholia was caused by an excess of black bile; hence the name, which means 'black bile' (Greek μελας, melas, "black", + χολη, kholé, "bile"); a person whose constitution tended to have a preponderance of black bile had a melancholic disposition. See also: sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric.

During the early 17th century, a curious cultural and literary cult of melancholia arose in England. It was believed that the passing of the dazzling culture of Elizabethan England after the death of Queen Elizabeth I, together with religious uncertainties caused by the English Reformation and a greater attention being paid to issues of sin, damnation, and salvation, led to this cultural mood.

In music, the post-Elizabethan cult of melancholia is associated with John Dowland, whose motto was Semper Dowland, semper dolens. (Always Dowland, always mourning.) In literature, William Shakespeare expressed the cult of melancholia in his play about Hamlet, the "Melancholy Dane." Another literary expression of this cultural mood comes from the death-obsessed later works of John Donne. Other major melancholic authors include Sir Thomas Browne, and Jeremy Taylor, whose Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial and Holy Living and Holy Dying, respectively, contain extensive meditations on death. But the most extended treatment of the cult of melancholia comes from Robert Burton, whose Anatomy of Melancholy treats the subject from both a literary and a medical perspective. A similar phenomenon, though not under the same name, occurred during Romanticism, with such works as The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe.

A famous allegorical woodcut by Albrecht Dürer is entitled Melancholia I; amongst other allegorical symbols, it includes a magic square.

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Dejection	Melancholy; sadness; Adjective: il penseroso, melancholia, dismals, blues, lachrymals, mumps, dumps, blue devils, doldrums; vapors, megrims, spleen, horrors, hypochondriasis, pessimism; la maladie sans maladie; despondency, slough of Despond; disconsolateness; Adjective: hope deferred, blank despondency; voiceless woe.
Insanity	Fanaticism, infatuation, craze; oddity, eccentricity, twist, monomania (caprice); kleptodipsomania; hypochondriasis; (low spirits); melancholia, depression, clinical depression, severe depression; hysteria; amentia.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Melancholia

English words defined with "melancholia": melancholiac, melancholic. (references)

Domain	Title
Books	Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia (European Perspectives) (reference) Clara Mondschein's Melancholia (reference) Cultures of the Death Drive: Melanie Klein and Modernist Melancholia (Post-Contemporary Interventions) (reference) Three Faces of Mourning: Melancholia, Manic Defense, and Moving on (reference) Where the Roots Reach for Water: A Personal & Natural History of Melancholia (reference) (more book examples)

Music	Extenso/Apex/La Melancholia (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Thumbnail	Description & Credit	Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Melancholia with Fear.Credit: National Library of Medicine.		Melancholia attonita.Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

"Melancholia" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 69.70% of the time. "Melancholia" is used about 33 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	69.7%	23	72,767
Noun (proper)	30.3%	10	111,207
Total	100.00%	33	N/A

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "melancholia"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		melankoli (melancholy). (various references)

Arabic		‏المالنخوليا السوداء, ‏السوداء (melancholy). (various references)

Bulgarian		меланхолия (dismals, melancholy, spleen), потиснатост (megrims, melancholy, oppression). (various references)

Czech		tìžkomyslnost. (various references)

Dutch		melancholia involutionis (involutional melancholia). (various references)

Farsi		مالیخولیا (Hypochondria, Mare, Melancholy), گرفتگی (Congestion, Eclipse, Jamming, Obstruction), سودا (Bargain, Eczema, Hypochondria, Mare, Melancholy, Soda, Transaction, Yellowbile), افسردگی (Dejection, Depression, Doldrums, Freeze, Gloom, Oppression), دلتنگی (Anguish, Ennui, Tedium). (various references)

Finnish		synkkämielisyys, raskasmielisyys (melancholy). (various references)

French		mélancolie (melancholiness, melancholy). (various references)

German		schwermut (dejection, depression, gloom, hypochondria, melancholy). (various references)

Greek		μελαγχολία (despondency, megrims, melancholy, sadness, sombreness). (various references)

Hebrew		מרה שחורה (hypochondria, melancholy), דכאון (dejection, depression, dispiritedness, gloominess, hypochondria, melancholy, morbidity). (various references)

Hungarian		melankólia (melancholy, mumps), búskomorság (distemper, melancholy). (various references)

Italian		malinconia (gloom, hump, melancholiness, melancholy, miserable, pensiveness, sadness, somberness, sombreness, spleen), depressione psichica. (various references)

Japanese Kanji		鬱病 (depression), メラミン樹脂 (Maryland, melamine resin, melancholic, melancholy, merry, Merry Christmas, merry-go-round), 憂欝症 (hypochondria). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		メランコリア , うつびょう (depression), ゆううつしょう (hypochondria, severe depression). (various references)

Pig Latin		elancholiamay

Portuguese		melancolia (atrabiliousness, dejection, gloom, heartbeat, low-suit, melancholy, mourning, sadness), divisão (allotment, boundary, compartment, dismiss, division, fissure, fraction, frontier, head, hedge, litharge, military division, parceling, parcelling, parting, scission, section, separation, severance, split), depressão psíquica. (various references)

Romanian		melancolie (blue devils, gloom, gloominess, hip, melancholy, sadness, spleen), depresiune (basin, blues, bottom, cave, cavity, dejection, delve, depression, despondency, draw, hollow, notch, pan, sag, scoop). (various references)

Russian		меланхолия. (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		melanholija (blues, melancholy). (various references)

Spanish		melancolía (blue devils, blues, gloom, gloominess, melancholy, moodiness). (various references)

Swedish		melankoli (gloominess, melancholy). (various references)

Thai		โรคทางจิตที่มีอาการซึมเศร้า. (various references)

Turkish		melankoli (dreariness, hypochondria, melancholy, vapors, vapours), karasevda (spleen, vapors, vapours). (various references)

Ukranian		меланхолія (athymy, melancholy). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "melancholia": melancholiac, melancholiacs, melancholias. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Melancholia" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: melanchlolia, melancholiac, melancholias, Melancholie, Melanchollie, Melancolia, Melancolica. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

Words rhyming with "melancholia" (pronounced 'Mel`an*cho"li*a'): Abdominalia, Acholia, Alalia, Antlia, Aurelia, Bacchanalia, Cerealia, Coelia, Dahlia, Generalia, Grindelia, Linguatulida, lobelia, Lupercalia, magnolia, Mammalia, Marginalia, Nebalia, Neuroglia, Paraphernalia, Penetralia, Physalia, Prosocoelia, Pseudocoelia, Quinquennalia, replica, Rosalia, Saturnalia, stapelia. (additional references)

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-a-c-e-h-i-l-l-m-n-o"
	-2 letters: echolalia, halocline.
	-3 letters: achenial, achillea, alliance, analcime, ancillae, calamine, camellia, canaille, heliacal, inchmeal, monachal.
	-4 letters: acholia, aeolian, anaemic, ancilla, calomel, camelia, canella, challie, chalone, choanae, choline, encomia, helical, helicon, hellion, hemiola, laminae, laminal, limacon, lochial, machine, mahonia, manacle, manhole, manilla, manille, manioca, melanic, micella, mochila.
	-5 letters: aecial, aeonic, alnico, anemia, anemic, animal, anlace, anomic.
	Words containing the letters "a-a-c-e-h-i-l-l-m-n-o"
	+1 letter: melancholiac, melancholias.
	+2 letters: melancholiacs.
	+3 letters: enharmonically.
	+4 letters: biomechanically, hemodynamically, plainclothesman.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)

4D 65 6C 61 6E 63 68 6F 6C 69 61

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)

American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)

⁼

Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)

Braille (1829, in France) (references)

Morse Code (1836) (references)

-- . .-.. .- -. -.-. .... --- .-.. .. .-

Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)

Bibliographic Items: "melancholia"

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Amazon.com BOOKS: Search for: "melancholia"

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Expression	Frequency per Day
melancholia	40
melancholia durer	3
brugghen hendrick melancholia ter	2
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Melancholia

Definition: Melancholia

Melancholia

Noun

Synonym: Melancholia

Specialty Definition: Melancholia

Synonyms within Context: Melancholia

Dejection

Insanity

Crosswords: Melancholia

Commercial Usage: Melancholia

Books

Music

Photo Album: Melancholia

Usage Frequency: Melancholia

Frequency of Internet Keywords: Melancholia

melancholia

melancholia durer

brugghen hendrick melancholia ter

Modern Translations: Melancholia

Albanian

Arabic

Bulgarian

Czech

Dutch

Farsi

Finnish

French

German

Greek

Hebrew

Hungarian

Italian

Japanese Kanji

Japanese Katakana

Pig Latin

Portuguese

Romanian

Russian

Serbo-Croatian

Spanish

Swedish

Thai

Turkish

Ukranian

Derivations & Misspellings: Melancholia

Derivations

Misspellings

Rhyming with "Melancholia"

Anagrams: Melancholia

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

Alternative Orthography: Melancholia

4D 65 6C 61 6E 63 68 6F 6C 69 61

-- . .-.. .- -. -.-. .... --- .-.. .. .-

Bibliographic Items: "melancholia"

Public Service or Web Sites Triggered by: Melancholia